Feedback Control Systems: A Fast-Track Guide for Scientists and Engineers

Rating:
Summary: Exactly what you need to get started
Review: Here was my assignment:

Make a proof of concept system that points a laser at a moving target.

My problem:
I knew how to write the software, I knew how to put the hardware together, but, I had no idea what to put in my feedback loop to make this thing track.

Oh yeah, I had to do this in two weeks.

So I read part of this book (my suggestion is start in the middle and read the math section when you /need/ to understand something in more depth) and I completed the assignment on time.

End result: I am not an expert on control systems theory, but by reading this book, I was able to get up and running in a matter of days.

Rating:
Summary: A Must Have!
Review: I'm a physics grad student and needed to frequency stabilize a laser using a rather complicated feedback system. I had no controls theory background but needed to "get up to speed" fast--this book did it!

If you are faced with designing a working feedback system and are not a controls theory expert, this book is the single most useful reference you would ever hope to find. The explanations are intuitive and the practical advice indispensible. This book saved me many weeks on the learning curve. I was able to understand and measure the most challenging aspects of my particular system and clearly see how to predict performance.

It's very streamlined: the emphasis is clearly to deliver the relevant information with the least amount of overhead. As such, the only missing part of the book that I wanted is a list of references. Recognizing the insight of the authors, I would have liked a list of their favorite controls publications!

Rating:
Summary: A Must Have!
Review: I'm a physics grad student and needed to frequency stabilize a laser using a rather complicated feedback system. I had no controls theory background but needed to "get up to speed" fast--this book did it!

If you are faced with designing a working feedback system and are not a controls theory expert, this book is the single most useful reference you would ever hope to find. The explanations are intuitive and the practical advice indispensible. This book saved me many weeks on the learning curve. I was able to understand and measure the most challenging aspects of my particular system and clearly see how to predict performance.

It's very streamlined: the emphasis is clearly to deliver the relevant information with the least amount of overhead. As such, the only missing part of the book that I wanted is a list of references. Recognizing the insight of the authors, I would have liked a list of their favorite controls publications!

Rating:
Summary: Eminently useful, from beginner to user in 3 days!
Review: This is truly an excellent book. Speaking as a scientist that uses feedback loops as merely one component of experimental apparatus, this book contains everything you need and nothing that you don't. It contains explanations of analog and digital systems and illustrates these with practical and common examples.

This is the first book I give to graduate students and within three days they are up to speed both with the language of feedback control theory and the principles. Moreover the explanations provide an intuitive understanding of important concepts and as a result are not easily forgotten. I highly recommend it to all designers, builders and users of feedback control systems.